


take these bones (bring them back to life)

by taywen



Category: Uprooted - Naomi Novik
Genre: Ableism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amputation, Angst, Aphasia, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Major Character Injury
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-26
Updated: 2018-09-14
Packaged: 2019-01-20 02:28:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12423189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taywen/pseuds/taywen
Summary: Marek survives the Wood-Queen, more or less, and tries to deal with the consequences.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> asked my friends how badly Marek would be injured if he did survive the Wood-Queen. one suggested aphasia and the other went "I bet he's missing an arm too" and now here we are. thanks.
> 
> I wrote this for day four of Uprooted Week - the prompt was "AU". I didn't finish the fic in time but here's the first bit anyway!

Marek rouses properly three days out from the Valley, jolting into awareness all at once and reaching for a sword that is not at his side.

“Uncle Marek!” Marisha throws herself on him, knocking him back into the nest of blankets and hay that he’d woken upon.

“Marisha?” Marek’s voice sounds weak and confused to his own ears; he can’t remember where he is, or how he got here—

“Back with us at last, Your Highness?” Solya draws his horse up beside the cart, easy smile belied by the worried look in his eyes.

“Who—”

Marek stops. That isn’t what he intended to say. He meant to say _what_ , what is going on, what has happened, what have we _done_ —

The cart hits a bump in the road, rocking its occupants. Marek sways, off-balance. Something is wrong. Something is badly wrong.

“Does it hurt, Uncle Marek?”

“Marisha,” Stashek scolds. He’s watching Marek warily, like he expects an attack; beyond him, Kasia rides on the cart’s other side, her face even more suspicious.

“Does wh—”

Marek looks down at her, and then he understands.

* * *

“I tried everything I could.”

Ensconced in a rented room in some village whose name Marek didn’t bother to learn, Solya kneels at his feet. He clutches Marek’s hand in his own, his eyes wide and beseeching. “The Queen— The Wood-Queen,” he amends; the Dragon had caught up with them a day after Marek awoke, claiming that he and Agnieszka had defeated the Wood, which had in truth been corrupted by the Wood-Queen: that otherworldly creature who had worn his mother’s face like a second skin. “After she— Kasia drove her off, and I did what I could, but—”

“You did—” The words fail to come, as they so often do. Solya ducks his head, hiding his expression. How uniquely frustrating that Marek should still be able to see beneath Solya’s masks, and yet be unable to communicate his own thoughts and feelings. “Fine,” Marek finishes, furious with his own inability to find the proper word.

“You lost so much blood,” Solya murmurs, head bowed.

Marek squeezes Solya’s hand. He may only have one left, but it is still strong enough to wield a sword; to give Solya what comfort he can when words fail him. Solya clings back.

* * *

Marek watches the company of soldiers receding in the distance until even the dust kicked up by their passage settles. The Dragon and Marek will continue on to Kralia alone; it had taken Marek nearly half the day to convince Solya to go with Marisha and Stashek, but in the end he had relented and agreed.

The Dragon waits with poorly-concealed impatience, his gaze fixed on the road ahead: Kralia awaits them. If he has been injured or otherwise affected by the Wood-Queen’s defeat, it is not obvious: he has all his limbs and his words are as cutting as ever.

They ride along the road to Kralia in silence, until Marek can work up the nerve to ask: “Am I corrupted?”

He hates the thrill that goes through him when the words come out correctly; ridiculous, that such a mediocre accomplishment should have become so monumental. He glares down at his clenched fist, keeping his breathing steady through force of will.

If only force of will were enough to bring his useless tongue into submission.

The Dragon does not reply immediately. His expression is difficult for Marek to read when he looks up once more. “Solya could have determined that at a glance,” he says at last.

“You won’t—” Marek breathes in slowly, wracking his mind for the words. He’s never had Solya’s silver tongue, but simple communication never used to elude him like this; it is even more difficult without Solya to anticipate his thoughts and spare him the need to voice them. “You won’t say what I want to hear.”

One of the Dragon’s eyebrows rises incrementally. “No,” he agrees slowly. “I have never done that. Are you asking because of your speech?”

Marek nods, furiously grateful to be spared the struggle of admitting as much.

“One corrupted would not be impeded by injuries they have sustained; I’ve seen men walk on snapped legs, or drag themselves forward when their body has been cut in half, heedless of the pain. You’ve suffered some internal injury that affects your mind: the Wood would be able to bypass it entirely and speak flawlessly through your lips if you were corrupted.” The Dragon speaks matter-of-factly, pity or disapproval or satisfaction absent entirely from his voice. He might have been lecturing a student.

“I did not think—” The rest of the words will not come. Marek scowls, his hand tightening restlessly around the reins. “I knew,” he tries again.

“You chose to press the battle,” the Dragon says; Marek nods. “The Wood-Queen spurred you on, but you knew it was not right and you went ahead with it anyway. For your own glory.”

Some emotion has entered the Dragon’s voice, a frigid note of— contempt, perhaps. Marek bows his head, ashamed.

“What will you tell the Magnati?”

Solya coached him every spare moment on this very topic, undeterred by Marek’s black moods. He seemed to think repetition would enable Marek to flawlessly deliver the speech that Solya had devised to shift the blame to the Wood, to the wizards who failed to see the Wood’s influence upon the Queen, to anyone but Marek himself. It was only Marek managing to recite the speech without faltering that had at last convinced Solya to leave him only a few hours ago.

Marek looks at the Dragon, who regards him with the same distant reserve he always has, and tells him.

* * *

The Magnati accept Marek’s speech with as much grace as he had imagined, which is to say, none at all. They are furious. They shout at him, demanding explanations for the waste of resources - Alosha’s forged arms, the pair of obscenely expensive exploding cannon balls that Marek spent to breach the walls Agnieszka and the Dragon had conjured - and for the men who died, though the latter is more of an afterthought.

Marek bears it stoically. A monster wearing his mother’s face put her hand through his chest and ripped off his arm; a bunch of lords shouting themselves hoarse over Marek’s mistakes is nothing compared to that.

Solya will be furious when he hears of it, a fact that is worrying in a distant way; Marek had told them the entirety of the truth, whispered in the small hours of the morning when sleep eluded him and Solya slept fitfully nearby until he could say it without his useless tongue uttering the wrong word or losing it entirely.

“You found some sense at last,” the Dragon says, when the Magnati finally banish Marek from the meeting chamber. He’d stood to the side, taking everything in with thinned lips and dark eyes, then slipped out a step behind Marek as the bickering lords turned on each other. “Better late than never, I suppose.”

Marek narrows his eyes, but it is no more than he deserves; in any case, he feels unjustly exhausted, considering all he did was say a few words then stand firm as the Magnati erupted. The thought of trying to retort is too much.

Then he halts, frowning, as he realizes that the Dragon has led him to the Willow’s tower. He shakes his head and takes a step back.

“Don’t be ridiculous. The Willow is the preeminent healer in Polnya.”

Marek looks down at the stump of his left arm; even the renowned Willow cannot heal what is not there. And even if she could, Marek doubts that she would. He had never bothered to cultivate an alliance with her, or any of the witches and wizards beyond Solya; if he needed their service, on the rare occasion the particular magical specialty of one would outstrip Solya’s ability for the task, he had relied upon his rank to compel them.

Marek will never be King; he doubts his title as Prince will hold water for much longer. The Magnati would never consider him as even Stashek’s Regent now, not that Marek has any interest in the position. Perhaps they will appoint the Archduke of Gidna, though Marek finds that of little concern now. What matters is that he spent many days - was it really less than two weeks ago? - shouting at the Willow for failing to heal his mother’s shell and wasting what little patience she might have had for him.

“Your arm is lost,” the Dragon agrees, impatience bleeding into his voice. “Ragostok can fashion you a prosthetic, perhaps. But the mind is a delicate thing. I have little experience healing it, and I doubt Solya does either. However, the Willow has studied the healing arts more extensively than either of us.”

A prosthetic. Marek hasn’t even considered the possibility. He still forgets that his left arm below the elbow is gone; certainly, it is an inconvenience. But the thought of replacing it is even more jarring. Some part of him finds it fitting that he should appear as broken as he is inside.

“At least you won’t have any ridiculous notions of miracles in your head this time,” the Dragon mutters, and all but drags him into the Willow’s tower.

* * *

“There must have been extensive blood loss,” the Willow says to the Dragon, once she has finished examining Marek. “The brain, deprived of fresh blood, reacts in ways one cannot predict. This kind of damage is beyond even my skill to heal.”

The Dragon frowns faintly. “There were other concerns to deal with; he lost quite a bit of blood before we could reach him.”

“You made no mention of the head wound,” the Willow adds, tapping a thumb against her own forehead in the same place as Marek’s scar. The faded mark just below Marek’s hairline is all that remains of Agnieszka’s earnest attempt to beat his head in with a metal tray.

It’s a pity she didn’t succeed, all things considered.

Marek turns his head to look at the Dragon; the wizard shoots him an irritated look, then pointedly turns away when Marek simply raises his eyebrows.

“An old injury, I assume,” the Dragon says stiffly. “It was already there before he and Solya and the Queen laid siege to my tower.”

“What _did_ happen at your tower?”

Marek tunes the conversation out at that point. He shrugs his shirt back on, tying the laces slowly with one hand. The jagged scar on his breast - next to his heart - where the Wood-Queen’s hand had gone _in_ slowly disappears from his sight.

“Is he entirely mute? There was no lingering damage to his chest or throat; you healed that as well as could be expected.”

Marek raises his head, annoyed. The Dragon’s cutting words are deserved; he’d warned Marek numerous times, and dealt with the consequences of Marek’s disastrous decisions. He feels no such charity for the Willow.

“I am not,” he says flatly, but leaves it at that, some scrap of pride wanting to conceal the extent of his injury for as long as he can.

“The idiot prince speaks!” the Willow says sarcastically.

The Dragon steps in before matters can escalate further, flicking his fingers so Marek’s coat flies onto his arms - his right arm and the bit that remains of the left. It closes and fastens itself automatically; the spell even conjures a pin to tack up the flapping end of his left sleeve. Marek walks out, ignoring the words being exchanged behind him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> apparently this chapter has been in my drafts since last October... oops?

Marek stays in bed for the next few days. He doesn’t sleep, or if he does, he does not notice or realize it; he does not feel rested, at any rate. His left arm aches, a phantom pain that plagues him no matter how he positions himself; his stomach protests, real but somehow less pressing. Marek orders the servants and guards who come to check up on him away; “Get out,” is still a reliable part of his vocabulary, at least.

He tracks the progress of the day by the light that shines through the curtains; it is early morning on the third day when the Dragon stalks into his stale rooms, distaste obvious in his voice as he snaps out a handful of spells. His expression would surely match, but Marek does not care to turn to look. He squints as the curtains jerk open and sunlight hits his eyes, then swears as the blankets are rudely ripped away from him.

“Solya might enjoy caring for your every need, but I assure you this will not happen again,” the Dragon snaps, rattling around in the wardrobe and dresser somewhere behind him.

“To hell with you,” Marek mutters, pressing his face into the pillow. He was doing a passable job of forgetting about Solya, and his mother, and his newly-orphaned niece and nephew, and now the Dragon has ruined it.

“Do you even know what day it is?” the Dragon demands, slamming the wardrobe shut.

“No?” And he doesn’t care either.

“The funeral is this afternoon. I trust you can make yourself presentable and step outside the door, so your servants can drag you to the cathedral.”

* * *

Marek sits alone at the pew reserved for the royal family, barely listening to the archbishop’s eulogies for his father, brother and sister-in-law. There is no mention of his mother.

At least Stashek and Marisha should be safe from the Wood’s reach. And Solya as well. The Dragon said the Wood was no longer a threat, but he had seemed uneasy enough that Marek cannot bring himself to believe, yet. Not when the Dragon is still intent upon eradicating every seed of corruption that the Wood might have left in Kralia.

He tracks the Sword to her forge afterward; he hasn’t seen her since he returned to Kralia. She moves slowly, bandages visible beneath the edges of her sleeves and collar; the burn on one cheek looks months old rather than a couple of weeks: the Willow’s work, no doubt. Beyond the facial scar - which she will likely disregard - there is no obvious sign of permanent disfigurement.

“You want me to make you a sword,” the Sword says, flat and unimpressed, when Marek approaches her. Most of her equipment has been packed away; she intends to travel to Gidna to guard the children, and only stayed this long to attend the funeral.

“If you are well enough.” Marek holds her gaze steadily; he does not stare at the burns. He is tired enough of people gawking at his arm.

“I am,” the Sword says. “But I won’t forge you an enchanted blade.”

“I don’t need one. I want a—” Marek struggles for a moment before settling upon the word closest to what he means, “—blank sword.”

The Sword eyes him coldly. It was no secret that she favoured Sigmund for the succession long before the string of disasters Marek unleashed.

“Please,” Marek adds; it does not even rankle to say. “The— He won’t give me a blank sword.”

“The armourer?”

Marek nods, his hand clenching and releasing at his side.

The Sword studies him for several moments longer, then turns to the forge. The white fire bursts into existence at a handful of muttered words; Marek retreats to the corner to watch.

It seems over too quickly, but Marek has never bothered to observe the forging of a sword before. The Sword has been doing this for more than a century, and she has magic besides. Marek asked for a sword of plain steel, with no enchantments or blessings, so it is likely even easier for the Sword to make than usual.

“Here,” the Sword says shortly, holding the blade balanced flat across her palms. Marek takes it carefully; he has not held a sword in far too long (only a matter of weeks, impossibly), and his hand wants to shake as he curls it around the simple hilt. The Sword’s weapons are always forged for function over beauty, though the perfection of their form is a strange beauty in itself; this blade is plain and unadorned even by her standards.

But it sits comfortably in Marek’s hand, perfectly balanced; if his forms are clumsy as he tests it, it is only because he is still unused to his own changed body, or weak from spending three days abed.

He sheathes it in the worn scabbard the Sword holds out for him, aware of her eyes upon him but uncaring of what it means. He takes it from her, holding the scabbard just below the hilt, and considers the logistics of it. Tying the scabbard to his belt with only one hand, while not impossible, certainly will not be an easy task.

“Over your shoulder,” the Sword says, crossing her arms over her chest. “The tanner should be able to craft a suitable belt. You’d need only to pull the belt over your head.”

Marek nods. “Thank you.”

The Sword snorts. “Never thought I’d live to see the day the hero of Polnya should thank me for anything.”

“I’m not a hero,” Marek says calmly. He’d thought he was, once; he’d done great things, in the name of his own glory. But they pale into insignificance when he weighs them against what came after.

She raises her eyebrows. “What will you do now? The Magnati have been summoned to Gidna. You could speak on Stashek’s behalf.”

Does she wish to keep an eye on him? The suspicion is hardly unjustified. Leaving Marek in the capital while the presumed heir stays in a distant city would be the worst possible choice, if Marek still had any ambition left in him. He doesn’t even truly want to stay in Kralia, his home for his entire life.

But he cannot go to Gidna either. How can he face Stashek and Marisha? Solya? He’s said all he intends to say to the Magnati.

“Stashek can speak better than I can now,” Marek says; it’s the truth, in any case. “I asked— the Falcon to help.” Of course, Solya may have understood that to mean he should support Stashek only as far as it served to advance Marek; he’ll hear about what Marek told the Magnati soon, if he has not already, and Marek cannot be certain how he will react.

“Solya does have an understanding of Magnati politics,” the Sword allows. “But I wonder how safe the capital will be for you.”

Marek shrugs and lifts the sword still held in his hand. “The Dragon is dealing with the corruption.”

“So he is,” the Sword says, but it does not sound like agreement. She turns away after a moment, shaking her head, and busies herself with closing up the forge: as clear a dismissal as any.

Marek leaves her to it.

* * *

Marek still cannot sleep. His dreams are dark, bloody things that keep him from rest and leave him listless, unwilling to get out of bed to do more than relieve himself or drink some water, perhaps force down a bit of the food the servants continue to leave on a tray. He keeps the sword beside him, tucked beneath the blankets, and wears it slung across his back on the days that the Dragon appears to cajole him out of his rooms.

“You said you wouldn’t do this again,” Marek mutters resentfully the third time it happens, after he emerges from his bedchamber reluctantly dressed. He’d made some involuntary noise when the Dragon mentioned Solya earlier; the Dragon was no fool, and had swiftly changed tacks from his cutting insults to focusing on Solya until Marek had thrown back the covers just so he would stop _talking_.

“I didn’t pour all that magic into you only for you to waste what’s left of your life away,” the Dragon informs him coolly. “Alosha says Solya’s getting on her nerves. Perhaps I should write him a letter about how your lazing about is trying _my_ patience.”

Marek glares at him, his hand fisted at his side. “Do it, then, if you think— the Falcon is better— here,” he finally grits out, furious at how the words _will not come_. He cannot force his useless tongue to voice Solya’s name any more than he can possibly forget the stricken look in Solya’s eyes as he shouted for the Dragon and Agnieszka to help him even as Marek’s vision went dim.

He cannot stop his traitorous heart from beating faster at the thought of Solya returning. He would come back at once if Marek asked him to. But he is better off without Marek: Marek will die long before Solya even begins to look any older than he does now, and while Marek knows Solya will survive, surely it will be easier if Marek lets him be.

The Dragon levels him with a thoroughly unimpressed look, as if he can see right through Marek. But he isn’t Solya. “I know Polnya would be better served by Solya’s presence in Gidna,” he says. “Though I will admit Solya is better-suited to the task of wrangling recalcitrant princes.”

Marek makes a rude gesture that the Dragon ignores. “And what does the— great Dragon want from a one-armed prince?”

The Dragon plucks a party invitation from the growing stack on the table; already, the nobles in Kralia have begun to move on, as if the entirety of the royal family has not been nearly wiped out. “I suspect Count Mazur has some kind of corrupted artifact in his possession, but I need an excuse to enter his manor.”

“You didn’t get one?” The foremost wizard in Polnya never shows his face in Kralia unless he is summoned by the king; he should be drowning in invitations by now.

“Obviously not, or I would not be wasting my time here.”

“You want to— come with me. As my—”

“—a glorified childminder,” the Dragon says sharply, cutting him off. “Wipe that smirk off your face.”

* * *

“Do you have a death wish?” the Dragon snarls when they return to Zamek Orla. As it turned out, Count Mazur’s second son had unearthed a corrupted carving from storage, and the family had locked him in the cellar. Two drunken guests had unwittingly released him, and that was when the party had really gotten interesting.

The young man’s fingers had seemed more like claws, tearing easily through Marek’s coat, but at least they weren’t made of branches, and they’d inflicted little internal damage before Marek took off his head with the sword he still refused to go without. He’d have escaped even that much injury if he’d still had both hands, but the Dragon had healed him swiftly enough anyway, so Marek doesn’t quite see what the problem is.

“You brought me,” Marek says, unconcerned, when he realizes the Dragon expects an answer. The only remaining evidence of his injury is his torn coat, and besides the bit of dried blood on the skin beneath, the blood soaked into the black fabric isn’t obvious. At least the mourning clothes are good for something else besides reminding Marek of everything he’s lost.

“I didn’t expect you to throw yourself between a corrupted person and—” The Dragon stops, his eyes flashing.

“A— kitchen maid? I thought Agnieszka was only a kitchen maid.” Marek remembers the servant’s wide eyes, the way her mouth had been frozen in a silent scream, as the corrupted young man had gone for her. Her fear was just as real as Agnieszka’s had been that night, though Marek’s recollection of it is not so vivid. A result of the beating Agnieszka gave him, or the Dragon’s modification of his memory afterward, most likely.

Marek doesn’t blame either of them for it.

“You’ve changed.” The Dragon’s tone and face are unreadable.

Marek looks at him blankly, then lifts what remains of his left arm in a shrug.

“Yes, I hadn’t forgotten,” the Dragon says scathingly; Marek half-expects him to roll his eyes, but he restricts himself to bullying Marek into the hands of some concerned servants instead.


End file.
